The Connaught Rangers, the Leinster Regiment, the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, the Royal Irish Regiment and the Royal Munster Fusiliers were units of the British Army, which were disbanded following the establishment of the independent Irish Free State in 1922. The enlistment books contain records of soldiers serving in these regiments in the period 1920-22.
The scans of the enlistments books are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. This means you can download and re-use them freely for non-commercial purposes. We do ask that you credit the National Army Museum where appropriate.
Age on attestation is recorded in different ways in the enlistment books. For example:
'31' means the soldier was 31 years old when he completed his enlistment.
'23 2/12' means the soldier was 23 years and 2 months old when he completed his enlistment.
'18 213/365' means the soldier was 18 years and 213 days old when he completed his enlistment.
Place of birth usually contains three values: Parish, Town and County. The enlistment books sometimes use 'do' (short for 'ditto') when two or more of these values are the same. For example:
'Tipperary, do, do' means the soldier was born in the Parish of Tipperary, which is in the Town of Tipperary, which is in the County of Tipperary.
The enlistment books only include records for other ranks (i.e. not officers) who were serving in these regiments during the period 1920-22.
If you notice a problem when searching the Irish Soldiers' Records, send an email to info@nam.ac.uk
This Irish Soldiers' Records search tool has been supported by a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.